A glimmer of hope in the war against corruption<\/p>\n
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
\nGreat men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise
\ninfluence and not authority, still more when you superadd the
\ntendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.<\/p>\n
Lord Acton<\/p>\n
If power tends to corrupt - and Lord Acton's adage has
\ncertainly stood the test of time - the question for Indonesia
\ntoday is who is going to lead the battle against corruption?<\/p>\n
Certainly, we cannot expect those in power to provide the
\nleadership, if they themselves are prone to corruption.<\/p>\n
More than three years since the nation brought the repressive
\nregime of President Soeharto to an abrupt end in 1998, we as a
\nnation are still grappling with the seemingly interminable
\nproblem of pervasive corruption in this country.<\/p>\n
While every one seems to agree that corruption is at the root
\nof the country's never-ending crisis, there is no agreement on
\nhow we should end it. We are not even sure if there is a genuine
\ncommitment from the top political leaders to uproot corruption.<\/p>\n
For sure, there is never any shortage of slogans and buzzwords
\nin the official war against corruption: KKN (which stands for the
\nIndonesian words of corruption, collusion and nepotism), good
\ngovernance and good government are terms and expressions
\nfrequently used in the anti-corruption campaign.<\/p>\n
But these words have now lost their meaning and strength,
\nwhile anti-corruption slogans, as in Soeharto's days, remain what
\nthey are: meaningless words.<\/p>\n
Corruption is as pervasive today as it was four years ago.<\/p>\n
Indonesia still ranks among the most corrupt nations in the
\nworld in a recent survey of around 90 countries by Berlin-based
\nTransparency International.<\/p>\n
Things have hardly changed from the Soeharto era.<\/p>\n
In business the practice of giving bribes is still the order
\nof the day if you to want get anything done. In dealing with
\ngovernment bureaucracy, fees are being charged without official
\nreceipts.<\/p>\n
Worse still, with the government enacting new laws, rules and
\nregulations, supposedly as part of the national reform program,
\nbusiness regulations have become the most lucrative commodity as
\nbusinesses lobby to secure benefits to go their way.<\/p>\n
The judiciary, supposedly the dispenser of justice and who
\nshould therefore be at the forefront of the legal battle to
\ncombat corruption, is not immune to KKN practices either. Justice
\nin Indonesia can still be bought and sold.<\/p>\n
Corruption during the Soeharto years was accepted, or
\ntolerated, because many people sincerely (though perhaps
\nerroneously) believed that it was helping to grease the wheels of
\nthe bureaucratic machine. This pretext can no longer be defended
\ntoday.<\/p>\n
On the contrary, there is an agreement that corruption was
\nwhat brought Indonesia to its knees, and since the problem has
\nnot gone away, it is also the one that is keeping this country
\nfrom ever lifting itself out of its current economic predicament.<\/p>\n
The absence of any significant progress in the campaign
\nagainst corruption begs the question of how deeply ingrained has
\ncorruption become in the nation's culture? Is corruption now part
\nof our national culture as pessimists suggest, or have we become
\ncorrupt because of circumstances?<\/p>\n
There is certainly strong grounds to be pessimistic.<\/p>\n
Corruption has become even more widespread today than it was
\nbefore. This comes with the devolution of power, which once
\nbelonged solely to Soeharto and his inner circle. Among the major
\nbeneficiaries of this greater power sharing are the legislature
\n(both the House of Representatives and the People's Consultative
\nAssembly), and the regional administrations through the new
\nregional autonomy arrangements.<\/p>\n
The legislature has certainly shown its penchant to use, or
\nrather abuse, its newfound powers. Evidence of this was when it
\nflexed its muscle to depose of president Abdurrahman Wahid, and
\nsubsequently to block various economic programs of the government
\nof Abdurrahman and subsequently of President Megawati
\nSoekarnoputri.<\/p>\n
The regional administrations too have also shown disturbing
\ntraits of abusing their powers. In the battle for control over
\nassets and resources, some regional administrations would not
\nhesitate to resort to intimidations or even blackmail.<\/p>\n
The way the West Sumatra administration foiled the planned
\nsale of PT Semen Padang to Cemex is a case in point. While
\nprofessing to act in the interests of the West Sumatra people,
\nevery body knows better that the action was taken to protect the
\nbusiness interests of a handful of powerful local figures.<\/p>\n
All that we have done in these last three and a half years of
\nso-called reforms is to disperse power, and in the process, to
\nspread corruption. Corruption has not become less. It has not
\nonly remained pervasive, but has become more widespread.<\/p>\n
We have replaced Soeharto, his corrupt children and cronies
\nwith new players, and a lot more of them, and most are equally
\ncorrupt.<\/p>\n
In an ideal world, power and responsibility should go hand in
\nhand. One is expected to exercise power responsibly. In a
\ndemocracy, one way of ensuring that people in office use their
\npower responsibly is to put in place enough checks and balances,
\nnot only to prevent abuses, but also to hold them accountable.<\/p>\n
These democratic checks and balances are grossly absent in
\nIndonesia today even as we decentralized power away from the
\nhands of the president.<\/p>\n
Is the prospect really that gloomy? Will Indonesia be forever
\ncondemned by its own corrupt practices?<\/p>\n
There are some encouraging signs that things could get a
\nlittle better, at least on some fronts.<\/p>\n
A new anti-corruption law was enacted in December that places
\nthe burden of proof of corruption charges on the defendant. The
\nHouse of Representatives is finalizing a bill on the
\nestablishment of a new commission to investigate corruption
\ncases.<\/p>\n
But as one panelist pointed out at The Jakarta Post
\ndiscussion, the new bill defines corruption so narrowly that its
\neffectiveness in combating corruption became questionable.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian law defines corruption as acts that enrich
\nstate officials and cause financial losses to the state.<\/p>\n
The battle against corruption will encounter some legal
\nobstacles because of the narrow definition adopted by the law,
\nthe panelist said. \"We should learn from other countries whose
\nlegislation aimed to weed out corrupt practices,\" he said.<\/p>\n
With corrupt practices in the executive, legislative and the
\njudiciary branches of government still rampant, it is difficult
\nto expect any significant progress in the battle against
\ncorruption and the campaign to promote good governance and clean
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n
Under the circumstances, any little progress provides us with
\nhope, even if just a glimmer, that things will get better someday
\nsomehow.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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